Ending
by sarcastronaut
Summary: "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." Orson Welles. A light-hearted psychedelic examination of Frodo Baggins through the prism of wilfredness. The story came to me after watching the Wilfred finale, and I regret nothing. Contains strong language, obviously.
**Ending**

" _If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."_

Orson Welles

The dawn, or in any case something sufficiently close to it, found Frodo in the dimly-lit larder of the Bag End where he sat on the floor in the corner with his back to the shelves, surrounded by empty jars, fish bones and randomly strewn leaves of pipe-weed. His eyelids fluttered open and he tried to move but merely managed a quiet groan as the sleeping muscles protested the rash decision. Frodo looked around with blurry uncooperative eyes and waited for the familiar hollowness to settle in his chest, spreading from the scar left on his shoulder by the Morgul blade all those years ago. It didn't keep him waiting for long.

Regaining consciousness thought by thought, he contemplated the meaningless emptiness of his life while slowly flexing his muscles and preparing to get up. There was a tiny pickle stuck to the front of his shirt, which he brushed off before belatedly realising how hungry he was. Without turning around, he tried to grab something from the shelves behind his back, but his hand found only the dusty wooden surface and a dead cockroach. Frodo grunted and let his gaze wander through his surroundings once more. Eventually it found his old pipe on the floor within the reach of his arm, and he promptly grabbed it, half-heartedly wiped with the hem of his shirt and put in his mouth.

However, there was no fire anywhere near, and, having realised that, Frodo almost coerced himself to get up, yet in the very last moment a macabre wrinkly hand appeared right before his eyes, holding a burning match between two gnarled blackened fingers. He gratefully accepted it and spent a few moments lighthing the pipe before finally turning to look at the helping hand's owner.

"Morning, mate," said Gollum with a strong Australian accent. He sounded mightily pissed off. "Thought you'd be out till lunch."

"What… what are you doing here?" Frodo asked, more grumpy than shocked to discover his old nemesis came back from the dead and into his larder. His tongue seemed to lead a life of his own in his swollen mouth. "I thought… we were done."

"Did you really, though?"

Gollum smirked sadly and put his own pipe in his mouth. He looked even uglier than before, with third-degree burns spotting his thin slimy body and his face almost completely charred. He did somehow grow a stubble, however, and it looked as out of place on his face as the creature himself in the respectable halls of Bag End. There was a knowing look in his large wily eyes and on his charcoal finger there was a familiar golden ring.

"I thought we were done," Frodo repeated numbly and for a moment lost himself in the comforting taste of pipe-weed smoke. He shivered, even though the room was warm and quite stuffy.

"But are you happy, mate? How can we be done if you're not happy?"

"What does my happiness have to do with anything?"

Gollum looked at him as if he were joking, then very ungollumly guffawed and punched the hobbit's shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a friendly gesture.

"Come on now, Frodo. You can't be that dim. You're not a Gamgee, for Valars' sake! I'm pretty sure you've figured out a long time ago that your happiness has to do with everything. Everything, mate. Including the existence of yours truly."

Frodo's worst nightmare was upon him, and yet all he could do was chew on the pipe, strangely subdued in the presense of this unabashed creature. The cavity in his chest felt as bottomless as ever. He couldn't recall what day of the week it was, or even what month. Recently – and he had no idea how recently exactly – his life had been a blur of chain-smoking, gluttony and inebriety, all by himself, locked in the dusty Bag End without any meaningful connection to the outside world. He couldn't even tell for sure when this had begun. How much time had passed since the day they reclaimed the Shire from Saruman's thugs and saw Aragorn crowned as the King of Arnor.

"I don't understand," was all he could say, but Gollum waved it off like an annoying Midgewater insect.

"You understand everything, mate. Stop lying to yourself! We've been through all this shit already. Why do you insist on wasting everybody's time by feigning ignorance here?"

"What do you even want me to say?" snarled Frodo. "All you ever do is lie to me! Like that time in Mordor, remember? Yes, master, I obey, master. And then there's a giant fucking spider chasing me down the caves. How can you expect me to trust you after that?"

"Everything I do, I do to help you, mate, and I always did," shrugged Gollum, inhaling once more. "You can pretend otherwise all you want, but we both know you've realised long ago what's really happening. What is the meaning of it all."

"Care to elucidate me what I'm supposed to have realised?"

Gollum took a pause to pick at his ugly scabby nose, eventually procuring an ash-covered piece of snot. He promptly disposed of it by putting it in his mouth.

"Okay. Let's look at it this way. What do you think happened?"

"Are you kidding me?" Frodo laughed mirthlessly. "There was a fucking world war! Sauron returned from the dead, searching for the One Ring – the very same that now for some reason adorns your finger, "mate". The whole Middle-Earth went up in flames of war. And then we sneaked into Mordor and destroyed the Ring, putting an end to it all. And you, for that matter."

"Good. So that's what you've been telling yourself once again. I'm impressed. The denial is strong with this one. Or wait, it's from another universe, isn't it?" He thoughtfully scratched the back of his burned head. "Nevermind. Anyway. Let's start from the beginning. Who gave you the Ring, Frodo?"

"What do you mean who gave me the ring? My uncle Bilbo, of course. Drop the pretense, you know this perfectly well! He stole it from none other than you in a game of riddles when he was adventuring with the dwarves."

"Adventuring, eh? Do you still not see it?" Gollum sounded exasperated. "The burden of high expectations, mate. You were growing up in the shadow of your uncle, the famous Baggins of Bag End, the unwilling father figure for a reclusive parentless child. You had nobody else to look up to. You had nobody else to imitate. Of course there was a burden. Which, if you will, he passed on to you symbolically in a nice tidy envelope."

" _Uh_ -nvelope?"

" _E_ nvelope. Don't be a dick. Anyway. So, he retires. The 'Ring' is in your possession now. You are restless. You feel the need to prove yourself to him and to the whole wide world. Of course you set out on a 'journey'."

"Why are you making air quotes?"

"The same reason you keep making dumb excuses."

"What?" Frodo frowned. "It doesn't even make any…"

"Of course it makes sense!" Gollum snapped angrily, got up on his feet and started pacing around the larder, kicking the jars away from his path. "It makes perfect sense, only you refuse to see it, Frodo, because the escape fantasy you've surrounded yourself with is too tempting to let go. What happened to you on your journey? You saw a mentor figure die, didn't you?"

"Yes, but…"

"You saw a mentor figure die. You saw yourself become a burden to your friends – your very own friends, Frodo! – and you extracted yourself from their lives. Did you not?"

"Uh… yes, but…"

"Don't yes-but me, you hopeless miserable piece of shit!" screeched Gollum and hit the next jar with such power it broke against the wall. "You separated yourself from everyone. You went to a dark place all alone. You thought you had nothing to live for but those expectations of achievement. You needed to achieve what everyone expected you to achieve, you convinced yourself you had to do it for your authoritative jerk of an uncle. And of course there was a good guy and a bad guy in your head during that journey, nudging you to different directions. Only who was really the good guy, Frodo? Who tried to persuade you to give up the Ring and just try to be happy? Who followed you to the very last moment? Who finally – forcefully! – took that burden away from you, bit it off your fucking finger and let it die in ancient flames, taking himself with it? Who, Frodo? Who, mate?"

Frodo was silent. The flame in his pipe seemed to go out, for he couldn't even smoke while the ugly distorted creature danced around the darkness of the room, spewing accusations which hit suspiciously close to home. He closed his dry tired eyes and willed Gollum to go away, only to open them again in a few moments and see the charred face stare at him with contempt.

"I nursed you back to whatever passed for happiness in your cranky head," the horrible creature said quietly. "I made you see the good things in life for a change. I made you let it all go. And what do I see now, several years later? A lonely, slovenly, overweight piece of shit living in his larder and pitying himself? You disgust me, Frodo. I thought my sacrifice meant something. I thought I did something good."

Gollum collapsed on the floor, his back to the wall opposite Frodo. He angrily tore the Ring off his finger and flinged it at the hobbit.

"Take it back, then, if you want it so much. I did everything I can. I can't anymore. I'm done with you."

And yet he showed no intention of leaving, silently staring at Frodo who picked the Ring from where it landed and was contemplating it without saying a word. It seemed just as heavy in his fingers as all those years ago when he was tempted to give in to its power and become… what, really? What was he hoping to become? And what had he done with his life in the end?

The hobbit broke down crying, hysterical sobs shaking his body and the shelf behind it. He felt everything inside him fall into that bottomless void without even coming close to filling it. He felt his whole life, that makeshift construction of mistakes and delusions, collapse under its weight and disappear in the hungry pit without a trace.

And then he felt a small cold hand on his shoulder.

"Come on now, mate," said Gollum quietly and stretched out his other hand. For a moment Frodo just stared at the convoluted black and red texture of his burned arm, and then he dropped the Ring onto the creature's palm. Gollum closed it in a fist, and when he opened it again, there was a yellow tennis ball instead.

"What now?" Frodo asked, his voice hoarse and reluctant.

Gollum shrugged and smiled at him with what few yellow teeth remained in his mouth.

"Let's try and get you to the Undying Lands in the Far West, mate. Or whatever you'd like to call it."


End file.
